What It's Really Like Out There
by DigMeAGarden
Summary: Gaige is just a high school student, a kid! Yet through a series of events she finds herself on Pandora, utterly unprepared in every way. What happened before we meet Gaige at the train crash?


Gaige had never killed anyone, not directly anyway.

Despite her cynical attitude she had always been a good person. This was not to say that she wasn't confrontational and certainly not to say that she was afraid of anyone! Over dramatic? Possibly. Full of angst? Of course! Was she a high school student or not? Gaige hated the world, she hated the people in it, she wished harm on all those who had done wrong in the name of justice!

Corruption! Prejudice! Liars! Overall Snobbiness! She couldn't stand it, she couldn't stand any of it and somehow she always found herself in the center of it all! That was why she'd built DT, or...ahem, sorry, DEATHTRAP! Righter of wrongs! Defender of the weak! Harbinger of Justice! FUCKING ANARCHY! oh...um...excuse me.

She hadn't foreseen what had happened at the Science Fair. Marcie Holloway had been the bane of Gaige's existence, sure! She'd made sure Gaige knew full well where she came from and that she would never be more than just some dirty grease monkey in her dad's tool shed. Gaige hated her. Wished awful, painful things on her. She'd even wished death on her. But when that thieving-puss-guzzling-_dumpster_-**slut**! (Oh, pardon me!) had shoved her, and DT, sorry, **Deathtrap**, had reacted, and Marcie...exploded, Gaige realized she'd never wished that on anyone. What she'd meant when she said she wished Marcie "Would just go die!" had not been anything like what Marcie dying was actually like. When she had said she would have liked to POUND Marcie's _**head**_ on the floor until...well...she hadn't meant that...not like that.

No one could make Gaige as mad as Marcie had. She had thought if she could make Marcie stop, or go away, or if she hurt her really bad then it would make herself feel better. But when she stood there with Marcie's guts all over her, all over everything, Gaige didn't feel better. Gaige felt sick.

Marcie had been a jerk, like, a really big conniving asshole. Marcie had also had a family, people that loved her, she'd had a life ahead of her, even if it _was_ going to be a life full of douchebaggery. She'd had a father, like Gaige had a father. Gaige loved her father so much, more than anything in the world. They were buddies! They took care of each other! Gaige didn't know what Marcie's dad was like, but she thought about how, because of DT, Marcie wouldn't be going home that night. Marcie wouldn't be able to tell her father how she'd beaten Gaige with her own design. They would never laugh their evil laughs together, or skip merrily hand-in-hand through the factory that produced cheap police knock-offs of DT together, or...share a cup of hot cocoa together...ever...again. She hadn't killed her, but it was her fault that Marcie was dead.

This feeling had hit Gaige like a ton of bricks a couple of hours after boarding the transplanetary shuttle. The guilt was overwhelming and the fact that she had hastily had to leave everything she had ever known behind for some unknown, but totally AWESOME, new world left her in an intense state of panic. Surely the place for her was Pandora, but the shock of leaving her, actually, pretty stable life, for what was sure to be a run and gun lifestyle was giving Gaige some second thoughts. It was just the pre-fear-of-the-unknown jitters combined with the post-responsible-for-the-death-of-a-classmate anxiety, but she would get over it.

And so she was, by the time she stepped of the transport into the sandy wasteland of Pandora. Alone on the receiving platform with the shuttle disappearing into the atmosphere, Gaige had no choice but to be over it. There was nothing around her, no towns in sight, no trees, no road, just a rail for a train that she wasn't sure by the looks of was even in operation. She was ill equipped. Both emotionally and physically for this trip. She'd known Pandora was a wasteland of sorts but she had heard so much about the revolutionary findings, about the vaults, and about the occupation that she had been sure that there would be more here! Tumble weeds blew by, dust devils popped up and dissipated, and Gaige sat on the edge of the platform staring out at the sand trying to figure out what to do next.

* * *

That was how Gaige found herself in this situation.

This was her first lesson on Pandoran culture, never sit still for too long, something will _always_ find you. Well sit she had, and now a bandit sat on her chest, her arms pinned to the ground and her legs flailing useless trying to create some form of escape. She stupidly hadn't bought a weapon at any of the stops the shuttle had made on the way, she'd had the opportunity but the thought just hadn't occurred to her! Stupid, _Stupid__**, Stupid, **__Gaige!_ If you can count on a bandit to have anything, it is a weapon.

The metal barrel of the pistol felt cool against Gaige's forehead. The bandit had his face just inches from hers and was speaking unintelligible words that made no sense to her. Was he asking her a question? If she didn't do something she was going to die. She hadn't been here an hour and she was going to die. She could feel tears behind her eyes, any second she expected to feel a bullet rip through her skull and the world to go black. She couldn't escape she had to _**do**_ something!

Gaige strained her wrists against the grip of the bandit who was still talking at her face. If she broke away he would shoot, if she hit him he would shoot. Gaige closed her eyes and winced when the barrel gave a small shove against her temple, a tear escaped from the corner of her eye and ran down to her ear. She thought of Deathtrap, if only she could free her wrists to summon him! Wasn't going to work, the bandit had her flesh arm held down with his knee, she needed that hand to activate DT on her metal arm, but the weight of the bandit was to much.

Her hammer! She still had her trusty hammer in her belt! If she could free her metal arm she could reach the hammer! She was stronger on that side, she had a better chance! It was an all or nothing chance, it had to be quick, she couldn't give him time to think. And it had to be fast, the bandit was yelling now and Gaige could smell his sour breath like metal and blood, he was growing impatient with her. Here goes! Her only chance...

1...2...3! Gaige bent her wrist upward, pinching the flesh of the bandit's hand hard between the metal panels on her arm. The bandit gave a scream in pain and reeled back for a moment, yanking his hand from her arm. Quickly Gaige reached for her hammer. Time was almost up, the bandit, over the pain and was turning back on her. Head shaking, a primal scream erupted from behind his mask as he pointed the gun back at Gaige's face. Milliseconds to go before his finger would close on the trigger with enough pressure to fire...

Blood splattered Gaige's face as she brought the hammer around with as much force as she could muster. She hit him once more and heard his skull split with a sickening crack. He fell to the side and she was able to regain her footing once more. Backing away, she could hear him still muttering to himself.

"Set it, set it, set it on...on on on...on set, set on, it, t, t, t," How was he still talking? Gaige watched eyes wide. Her heart beat hard in her chest.

"SET IT ON **FIRE**!"

When he lunged at her she didn't think, her reflexes reacted and she obeyed. With both hands on the hammer she swung as hard as she could and connected with the bandit's head. The crunch, the sickening squelch, the smell, Gaige will never forget. The sight of a human body, limp and lifeless, blood pouring out from the hole _she'd _made in it's skull and from behind it's mask. A moment ago it had been a living, breathing human. Now it was just a sack of water based chemicals spilled over a concrete slab...rotting. Once upon a time it had walked and talked. Once upon a time it had perhaps been an intelligible human. Once upon a time it had descended into madness. Not anymore.

Gaige had never killed anyone, not directly anyway. Not until now.

As she stared at the corpse in front of her Gaige felt sick, it was a different kind of sick than when Marcie had died. She sank to her knees, the blood running from the body was almost at her feet. The wind picked up and Gaige caught a whiff of the scent, that dead-these-are-my-brains-this-is-my-congealing-blood scent and she heaved. The heaving became mixed with sobs and the blood at her feet became spotted with tears. She couldn't breath, she felt like she was going to hurl. Gaige shut her eyes tight and buried her face in her dirty hands.

* * *

When she finally had the courage to look up again she was done crying. The tears had left streaks in the dirt and blood that had dried to her face. Breathing hard she stared at the body of the dead bandit. The gun he had been holding lay not far from his hand in the pool of drying blood. Slowly she rose and walked around the body, never taking her eyes off of the nameless figure on the ground.

Looking down at the gun Gaige contemplated leaving it here. But this thought was fleeting. She bent down and peeled the gun from the half coagulated blood, making a sticky sound that reminded Gaige of that first step after you've just put your foot down on someone's freshly chewed gum.

Turning the gun over in her hands she found that there was a name carved into the frame. _Migs_. Whether it was the gun's name or the bandit's or the bandit who'd own this before him, Gaige didn't know. Maybe they'd all been named Migs. Maybe it had been his wife...

She stared at the name for a while before sliding it into her belt. Looking out onto the horizon Gaige could see nothing, no clue as to where she should go now. The only clue was the rail. It had to go somewhere right? It had to have been built by someone to go somewhere. Follow the rail and she was sure to find something or someone.

Giving one last look back at the corpse of the man that she had killed Gaige heaved a big sigh. Then she cast her eyes to the ground as she stepped off the platform towards the tracks. She chuckled to herself.

"Fucking Anarchy."


End file.
